Navon, Jonah Moses ben Benjamin
NAVON, JONAH MOSES BEN BENJAMIN
NAVON, JONAH MOSES BEN BENJAMIN (d. 1841), rabbi and Jerusalem emissary. Navon, together with his cousin, Joseph Saadiah Navon, was sent to Gibraltar and to various Moroccan communities by the rabbis of Jerusalem in 1802–03 in order to mobilize financial aid for the Jerusalem community. He went on a second mission in 1804, and on his return was appointed a member of the bet din of Solomon Moses Suzin, whom he succeeded at the end of 1836 as Rishon le-Zion, a position he held until his death. Navon used his great authority to assist the Ashkenazi community of Jerusalem in acquiring the "Ḥurvah Synagogue" of Judah he-Ḥasid from the Arabs and in erecting a synagogue on the site. Navon added novellae and glosses to the Neḥpah ba-Kesef, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1843) of his grandfather, Jonah b. Hanun *Navon, and some of his own responsa appear in the Ḥukkei Ḥayyim (ibid., 1843) of Ḥayyim *Gagin.
bibliography:
Frumkin-Rivlin, 3 (1929), 274–5; M.D. Gaon, Yehudei ha-Mizraḥ be-Ereẓ Yisrael, 2 (1937), 453; Benayahu, in: Sinai, 24 (1948/49), 25–14; Yaari, ibid., 25 (1949), 320–30; Yaari, Sheluḥei, 566–7.
[Abraham David]